The EU shelved AI liability rules. Sam Altman has revived the debate.

Brussels — EU lawmakers are reiterating calls to revive an artificial intelligence liability law after receiving support from an unlikely source: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. In an interview with Decoded by POLITICO, Altman stated, "If something goes wrong with our models during training, there's gonna be some version of that we need to be responsible for.

There's gonna need to be a liability framework for companies." This renewed focus on liability has prompted influential members of the European Parliament to revisit the EU's scrapped AI liability proposal, which was killed amid efforts to deregulate and reduce legislative burdens on companies. German conservative lawmaker Axel Voss, who previously led the proposal, welcomed Altman's admission that liability is necessary for trust and expressed hope that Brussels would reconsider.

Voss noted that the 2022 proposal would have addressed responsibility before deployment, during training, and testing. He advocated for applying product liability law, assigning responsibility to AI model makers to develop with safety in mind. As AI development accelerates and incidents of harm become more concerning, proponents argue the EU's decision to abandon the liability proposal has been shortsighted.

The European Commission maintains its stance on the AI Act while considering the potential need for additional rules to address liability.